There were 126 caregivers of stroke patients who participated in this study.
The majority of family caregiver’s age is in late adulthood (40 years to 59 years), accounting for 66.7% of total and the mean age of 52.4 years. Findings were consistent with previous stroke caregivers, which reported that a majority of stroke caregivers with mean age between 45 to 55 years (Costa et al., 2015; Denno et al., 2013; Jaracz et al., 2015; Karahan et al., 2014; King et al., 2010; Kniepmann, 2014;
Lee, Yoo, & Jung, 2010; McLennon et al., 2014; Pesantes et al., 2017). In contrast, other researchers reported that stroke caregivers participating in their studies mostly age with mean above 55 years (Andrew et al., 2015; Bakas & Burgener, 2015; Chen et al., 2010; Dankner., 2016; Ekstam et al., 2015; Fens et al., 2014; Kruithof et al., 2016).
In Vietnam, Hayashi and colleagues (2013) conducted a study to assess the needs of caregivers of stroke patients in one hospital at Southern Vietnam. They found that caregivers fell almost equally into two age groups: 52.3% of caregivers were 45 or younger, and 47.7% of caregivers were 46 or older (Hayashi et al., 2013).
In this study, the majority of stroke caregivers were female (71.4%).
Findings were consistent with previous stroke caregivers in the literature (Charerntanyarak et al., 2015; Costa et al., 2015; Denno et al., 2013; Jaracz et al., 2014; Kaneko & Kanekawa, 2015; Karahan et al., 2014; King et al., 2010;
Kniepmann, 2014; Lee et al., 2010; McLennon et al., 2014; Yu et al., 2013). The social and cultural expectation of their role required the women to be responsible for household work and family members, which showed that in many cultures, the caregivers are women who also take care of their family members and are responsible for household chores. This is different from men whose role is to work so that they can earn money for household members. Charerntanyarak and colleagues (2015) conducted a study related to quality of life of stroke patient caregivers at Srinagarind hospital, Khon Kaen province, Thailand. Finding has shown that most of the stroke caregivers (75.9%) were females. Kaneko and Kanekawa (2015) also found that 74.5% stroke caregivers were females. In the previous Vietnam literature, Hayashi and colleagues (2013) found that the majority of stroke caregivers were women (67.4%) (Hayashi et al., 2013).
In the current study, 92.2% stroke caregivers were married and 66.7% of them completed general education (primary, secondary, high school). Yu et al. (2013) found that 90.9% stroke caregivers were married, and 77.1% of stroke caregivers had general education. This was consistent with previous studies in literature (Dankner et al., 2016; Jeong et al., 2015; Kaneko & Kanekawa, 2015). With respect to occupation status, retired (38.1%) were most occupations of caregivers in this study. The women’s retirement age has been on policy makers’ agenda in Vietnam and currently retires at age 55, a full five years earlier than men. Approximately 79% of the stroke caregiver were not religion. It is consistent with Government released chronological statistics of registered religious groups found that about 74% Vietnamese people are folk religion and non-religion/atheism (Baulch et al., 2007). Half family caregiver (50%) had the duration of caregiving from three weeks to six months.
The majority of stroke caregivers (88.1%) reported having a monthly income of more than 1.3 million VNĐ ($59). This is considered minimal level for Vietnamese people’s daily living in urban areas when benchmarking with the medium household of a monthly per capita income in urban areas in period 2016 - 2020, which determined family income 15.6 million VNĐ ($708) per person per year or 1.3 million VNĐ per person per month (Decision No. 59/2015/QD - TTg dated November 19, 2015, promulgating multidimensional poverty levels applicable during 2016-2020)
(Ministry Of Justice, 2016). One of the reasons might be because a majority of stroke caregivers were retired, and they received benefits from a retirement pension.
In the present study, most stroke caregivers (62.7%) spent mostly 6 to 11 hours per day for taking care the stroke patients on the average. This result was consistent with study of Yu and colleagues (2013) found that over half of the stroke caregivers (52.1%) spent more than 8 hours a day providing care to the stroke patients.
However, Meesuk (2005) and Chen et al. (2010) found that stroke caregivers spent 16.99 hours and 11.5 hours on average time per day for taking care the stroke patients.
The discrepancy may be come from the different experiences in performing caregiving or needs assistance of stroke patients or may be from the caregiver can arrive at unequal level support from others. In this study, stroke caregivers showed that they had caregiving assistant (57.1%) from other family members as son/daughter, spouse, and sibling. Nevertheless, almost stroke caregivers (77.8%) said they did not have caregiving experience before come to the caregiver. In addition, 99.2% stroke caregivers did not get training skill for caregiving from others. In Vietnam, a study of Hayashi et al. (2013) strongly recommended that the providing oral and printed instruction, and an individualized information booklet from the acute-care hospital should be considered and conducting classes for stroke patients and inviting caregivers to therapy sessions with the stroke patients they care for are recommended so that caregivers can observe and learn, before discharge, which exercises the stroke patients should be do when they return home.
Furthermore, 33.3% of the stroke caregivers had their own health problems before they began caregiving including muscle pain, high blood pressure (see Table 4.2). Likewise, Meesuk (2005) showed that 28% of the caregivers had health problems before they start taking for stroke patients. This may be because most of the stroke caregivers were female, and the majority of stoke caregiver’s age is in late adulthood (40 years to 59 years). Many changes may occur between young adulthood and late adulthood. The body may slow down, and the middle aged might become more sensitive to diet, substance abuse, stress, and rest. In particular, hormonal changes in middle age women who health problems can become an issue along with disease (Dalal & Agarwal, 2015). Besides, findings in this study showed that the caregivers (94.4%) developed health problems after taking care of the patients. Most health
problems found among them were muscle pain (33.4%), stress (21.4%), and sleeplessness (20.3%) (see Table 4.2). This finding was consistent with previous studies (Yu et al., 2013; Meesuk, 2005; Asiret & Kapucu, 2013).
The majority of relationships between stroke patients and caregivers were spouse (56.3%), followed by son/daughters/daughter-in-law (34.9%), and other relatives (8.8%). The results were consistent with previous studies, in which the relationships between caregivers and stroke patients were wives/husband (Jaracz et al., 2015; Kumar et al., 2015). About 47.6% and 31.7% of stroke caregivers gave reasons for caregiving that it was their obligation and responsibility, as majority of the relationships between stroke patients and caregivers were spouse and children.
This is because the Vietnamese culture, when the husband is sick, the wife is expected by society to perform caregiving. The females have to take care of household chores and look after family members (Tho & Hanh, 2016). In addition, influenced by Buddhist theology and Confucian philosophy, the traditional Vietnamese family is filial piety that sets an expectation for children to respect and care for aging parents (Canda, 2013).